Climbing Legless Ladders

This article was originally published in ONE magazine here courtesy One Hundred, a member of Omnicom.

“Yes Will, I suggest you look for a new job”.

It was the call I’d been dreading. But I knew it was coming. Having joined an events production company in the late 80’s, weathered 13% interest rates on my mortgage, watched as unemployment started to soar, the London based production company I’d joined as business development manager, had seen its work dry up. Just a few months ago I’d been at Brockett Hall, launching a range of batteries for Duracell, with an event production budget in the hundreds of thousands of pounds.

Now I was last man standing; I’d been promoted ‘up the ranks’ as people had been leaving, or being made redundant to cut costs. I was now ‘Managing Director’ (whatever that meant) in my late 20’s, with almost weekly tasks of making people redundant. Now, I had to make myself redundant.

“Close the office, set the alarm, put the company car keys back through the letterbox, we’ll be in touch in writing” the call ended.

So, that was it. What was looking like a great career developing, in an exciting industry, living in London, in a flat I’d bought in 1988 had, well, hit a brick wall.

Leaving the office, I walked over the road to a pub we used to all drink in, the Legless Ladder, ordered a Guinness, pulled out a smoke and sat there, bemused. Whilst I was sat there, my mood as black as my drink, I noticed an old chap, all on his own in the corner. He was unkempt, looked unloved and extremely sad. Don’t ask me why, but I got up, went and sat next to him and asked him if he was alright? “Not really” he said, “I’ve lost my job, my wife’s kicked me out and I’ve got nowhere to go”. To say there was a bond between us is overstating it, but at that time, I felt I had a comrade, someone who was in a worse position than me, and put my troubles into perspective.

After buying us more than a few rounds, I offered to help him get back together with his wife, not my best idea ever. We walked to his home, a council block just off Battersea High Road and knocked on his front door. A huge barrage of swearing erupted from inside, with words to the effect “You’ll never f*****g see me again or something equally terminal. He was sobbing. We walked back to the street, I hailed a cab and asked to be taken to a homeless shelter – the cabbie knew one between Balham and Tooting Bec. When we arrived, I convinced the night manager to allow him to spend the night there, he was allowed to kip down in the reception room. As I left, I thought to myself, “I’ll never let myself get as low as that poor chap” and walked home to my flat in Streatham, a flat with a mortgage I now couldn’t afford, my future as uncertain as his.

29 years later, many millions of people in the UK will be feeling like I felt, some worse – some better. But, all worried, uncertain, vulnerable. The rungs have been pulled out from under the ladder they were climbing, through no fault of their own. No one would have predicted the outbreak of the novel Corona Virus in November 2019. The first cases were reported on (but not acted on) in China in early December. As I write this, at the end of the first week of a UK wide lockdown in the UK, no one knows when normal will return.

But, normal WILL return.

A new normal. Where everything and nothing has changed. Reading this, you may well be one of the millions facing an uncertain future. Whether furloughed, a small business owner, someone in the decimated hospitality industry – an industry leader responsible for shareholder returns and meeting quarterly targets. Covid-19 has affected everyone. But, whilst it’s a time for reflection, and tears, and anger and worry, it’s key that these pass as fast as you can help them, and you move on to looking to the future. For, sure as eggs are eggs, the sun will rise, the day will dawn, you have a daily allowance of 86,400 seconds to change your now, hopefully for the better, if not now, when?

Post Corona Virus, the way the world works, plays and develops will have changed. Many of us can ‘WFH’ or Work From Home. But will we want to? There is a huge focus on ‘keyworkers’ and ‘need to have’ not ‘nice to have’. Is your business ‘key’ – one that people need. Or is it a more vulnerable, discretionary one. Can people live without it? Or do without it?

It’s no accident I founded a product based business (products are always used), I chose shaving (because I’d never enjoyed it, got razor burn, felt let down by products on offer), and basis ‘hair grows daily – if you don’t want a beard, you’ll need to shave’ – it felt ‘safe’. When I founded King of Shaves in April 1993, I had no idea of the size of Gillette, I didn’t know the internet was about to happen (I bought shave.com for ￡18 in 1995) and that we would become ‘the’ challenger brand in the UK, one that would define the growth in men’s grooming from the mid-90’s, almost, to date – 24 years later!

Reader! This is a moment in time. Yes, to reflect on what’s happened, happening right now. Stay home, save lives. But, it’s also the time to plan for when we come out the other side. How future-facing is your business? Can it, will it survive the new normal? Will you try to make a success of a business, that in your heart of hearts, will never be needed as much as it needs to be. Will you be a Phoenix, risen from ashes or a Deer, stuck in the headlights, awaiting the inevitable?

Don’t prevaricate. Don’t ponder. Start planning, prepare to execute, with purpose and zeal.

Like me, you’ll be glad you did.

Will King

Founder, King of Shaves

twitter: @iamwilliamking

King of Shaves website: https://kingofshaves.com/